Link in the Big City
by Ham Sandwich Buster
Summary: Link gets fired from his job as a pizza delivery boy and gets a new job as an accountant at Hyrule, Inc. thanks to his roommates Zelda Hyrule and Jerry Stalfo. Can Link handle the paperwork, or will he submit to his co-worker? Implicit LinkxZelda
1. Chapter 1: Link in the Big City

Link in the Big City

_a story about the in modern hyrule written by two guys in different colleges_

"Link!" a female voice cried out in stark emergency. "You have to get to Kakariko Village and fast!" Hers was the cry of a pregnant woman whose patience for her damned husband to get his socks on since this baby isn't going to birth itself at the damned hospital. Link would have made a noise in reply if he was willing to wait long enough to do so, but time was of the essence. He would battle hordes of moblins and like-likes to complete his mission. With a left-handed salute, he grabbed the item from the lady's hands and burst out the door.

"Watch it, boy!" yelled a disgruntled old Zora who had been made to jump out of the way to avoid Link's reckless bounding. However, Link was already out the door and rushing up the road, onward to his destination…!

Sadly, he would never make it in time. Hyrule King, the local pizza fast food establishment, had a policy of delivery within fifteen minutes or less; the alternative was no charge for the delivery or food. Link had made it on his bike, which he had christened "Epona," to the Kakariko Village suburban neighborhood in eighteen minutes. He finally arrived at a dreary-looking house, the only one that didn't have a mown lawn. He rang the doorbell, which oddly made lightning crackle overhead. From the door burst a horrible-looking man with dark greenish brown skin and flaming orange hair: a black ginger, to be sure. He was wearing a business suit, but Link could tell right away that this man worked entirely for evil when Ganondorf said, "Oh, you're late. I'm not paying for that."

Twenty minutes later, Link had returned to the store. "Link!" his manager, Impa, cried in exasperation. "If you get lost, you have to go to your Start Menu and hit R to figure out where you're going! I've told you this three times, and anyway you've gotten five customer complaints for being curt and rude."

"Well," Link said haughtily, "excuse me." He folded his arms in self-defense, although it wasn't really helping his case.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about, Link. You have to learn to work as a team with me. Mido can deliver any pizza anywhere in Hyrule on time. Hell, this running guy can make it under five minutes!" Over her shoulder, Mido had his hands on his hips and was nodding repeatedly for some reason. The running man was relacing his sandals and catching his breath after failing to beat his delivery record of four minutes and sixteen seconds.

Link turned away, defeated. "I… ah."

"I'm sorry, Link," Impa said, marking something on her clipboard. "I have to let you go."

An hour later, Link had locked Epona up on the railing on the stairway to his apartment. He knew he had to find a new job, but what place would hire a high school dropout who couldn't even work a map? Link paused at the door, biting back his disappointment so that his roommates wouldn't notice, and then shoved his cheap door in, barely managing to open the damned thing. "I'm home—" he began.

"Link, tell your girlfriend that Ernest Hemmingway's social commentary is NOT dry and uneventful, but rather it's a parallel to the masculine approach the dichotomous social connotations of his given situation!"

"You take that back! Hemmingway is SO BORING."

They were at it again. Dropping his key on the table, Link slumped in his cheap recliner to watch the battle of his roommates unfold. Jerry Stalfo, a Stalfos from deep in the Gerudo Desert, was literature major at the University of Kakariko Village. He was always discovering new and deep-rooted metaphors and soliloquies that, frankly, went way over Link's head. His bony face had been surprising at first, but now Link was so used to it that he could even tell when Jerry was rolling his eyes.

Link's other roommate and childhood friend was Zelda Hyrule, daughter of the owner of the restaurant from which Link had just lost a job. She was presently unemployed, and always teased Link for being so quiet all the time.

"She's not my girlfriend, Jerry. You know that. Anyway, I've never read Hemmingway," Link said, using more words all at once than he had for the rest of the week combined. He blushed from talking so much, but Jerry and Zelda didn't notice, and continued arguing about the simplicity of Hemmingway's social commentary while Link trudged into the kitchen, which was about as barren as it usually was. There were a few bottles of Romani Milk, but Link didn't feel like partying tonight. He leaned against the counter and sighed deeply; that pizza delivery job had been his life up until this point. It's just that had didn't know what to do sometimes…

"You all right?" Zelda's tender voice cut into Link's fog of a consciousness. "You said a lot earlier, I was worried."

"No, I'm—" he said, pinching the bridge of his nose to simulate some kind of headache. "I'm fine. Just—just a little."

This seemed to Link that he had just made the performance of the year, but nothing gets past Zelda. "How was work today?" she said after a moment, sidling up next to him, leaning against the countertop.

"It wasn't, um…" he said, again uncomfortable with how many words were coming out of his mouth today. The message, however, got across.

"You got fired!" Zelda said, holding her hands over her mouth in sad surprise. "Oh no, Link, I'm so sorry! But don't worry. Let's ask Jerry, maybe he knows a place that's hiring."

They did, and the Stalfos started nodding knowingly immediately. "Yes, they never were very pleased with your performance there, now were they? Well, don't worry. A friend of mine is looking for someone to do some paperwork. I assume that you're well-acquainted with a pen, Link."

Link said nothing, which to Zelda meant that he had only ever seen those pens a few times in his life, and had never really held one before. Jerry, however, was content, and went back to reading his old and horrible novella.

The next day, Link, Zelda, and Jerry were all sitting in the waiting room at Hyrule, Inc. Link was nervously looking around at the corporate art hanging on the walls, the cheap potted plants in between each row of seats, and the receptionist, who may or may not have been sniffing the White-Out. Zelda was supportively patting Link's shoulder every so often, and Jerry was doing a crossword puzzle. Link tried to say something to calm himself down, but frankly this bland art was just making him ache to smash some pottery. Just before he get his nerve up enough to go break something, luckily, the door opened and a ReDead poked its head out. "RRREAAAAAAARRRRRHHHH," he said, beckoning Link closer. Shocked by the horrible noise, nobody moved except for Jerry, who sipped his mocha frappucino. "Sorry," the ReDead said after clearing his throat. "Had to get that out of my system. Are you Mr. Link?" he said.

Link nodded, muscles ajitter.

"Very well!" the ReDead said, stepping out into the waiting room. "I am George Foreman, no relation to the man from the telly, sorry to say." George's British accent was both delightful and oddly out of place. "Anyway, I'm the regional manager here at his branch of Hyrule, Inc. I hear you're in need of a job! Well, that's just fine, fine indeed, as I've need of a junior accountant. Afraid one of mine just passed into the Twilight Realm last Saturday. Been maddening, trying to find a replacement."

Link could only nod silently in reply.

"I say, you're quite to the point! Well then, I'll take you on starting tomorrow if that's all right," the manager said, shaking Link's stiff hand briskly before turning and nodding politely to Jerry, who raised his cardboard frappucino cup in greeting. "Ta, then." And with that, George shut his door, presumably heading back to work.

Link heaved a breathy sigh of relief, but released the air a bit too soon, which caused him to cough a little instead. Zelda patted him hard on the back in congratulations, which only made it worse, and Link just coughed for the rest of the chapter.


	2. Chapter 2: A ReDead for a Boss

Chapter 2  
The threesome walked into the apartment upon returning from Hyrule Inc. The place held a general malaise above the roommates despite the fact that Link had just landed a job only hours after being fired from his last. Perhaps this feeling was due to Link's mindset that his new job would be just as unfulfilling as his last. He had the expectation similar to that of a 7-year-old boy just before he opened a gift from his grandmother; he was excited to get a gift even though he knew it was likely a pair of much too long socks with his name embroidered upon each of them with no regard for straight lines or visual aesthetics of any kind.  
Thankfully, Link reminded himself, the building would only be a 15-minute bike ride from the apartment, downhill both ways. The three had driven in Jerry's 1995 Toyota Celica for the interview, but only so that they'd get there with plenty of time to spare.  
Link dropped himself on the couch in the living room. Zelda followed suit while Jerry began walking towards his room.  
"Congrats on the job again, sprout. I'm gonna hit the sack and take a nap real quick before I gotta be in for work at ten. 'Early to bed, early to rise' they always say, but I'm pretty sure Benjamin Franklin had the intelligence of an aborted Cucco. Later." Jerry worked as a night shift manager at a local shipping facility, FairWinds Shipping, which resulted in him usually being at work during the night and sleeping at home during the day.  
"T'anks," replied Link. No that was not a typo.  
"Sleep well, Jerry," called Zelda. Jerry gave a half-hearted wave over his shoulder as he disappeared down the short hallway to his room. "I don't know about you," she said, turning to Link, "but I'm getting hungry. Wanna cook up something together?"  
Link gave a shrug; the kind of shrug that he might give had someone just asked him if it'd be alright if their cat dropped a deuce in his boots.  
"Come on, let's see what's in the fridge." Zelda hopped up from the couch and scanned the contents of the kitchen, finally settling on a box of Malon Macaroni. "Here we are! Come on and help me!"  
Link knew that making dinner would help take his mind off of the next day, but he still grudgingly wallowed into the kitchen to try making an impression on Zelda that he wasn't too excited.  
The two cooked and ate, Link never uttering a complete sentence longer than 4 syllables the whole time while Zelda did all the ordering around in the kitchen and most of the talking while they ate.  
"Don't be so worried about tomorrow, Link. Mr. Foreman seemed like a very nice guy to work for, and I'm sure you'll meet some friendly new faces your first day. After a little while of setting in I'm sure you'll feel right at home. Oh! Look at the time! I've got to get ready for my date tonight!" Zelda collected her dishes, filled the dishwasher and scuttled into her room. Scuttling was her preferred method of transportation these days.  
Link silently envied Zelda for her ability to constantly go out on the town with her friends and new dates all while being unemployed. Sure, she'd get odd jobs here and there, many of which were for her father or some other royal connection, but for the most part she was a free spirit, constantly getting her father to pay her part of the rent.  
Link would occasionally wonder if Zelda had ever thought of him in a romantic way, but would often instantly block the notion out of his mind. She often went for guys that were much flashier then he. Just her last boyfriend was a Dodongo tamer for the local circus. Link specifically disliked that one because of the way he'd visit and then leave the apartment smelling like fire and cat urine, which had always made Link curious.  
Before long, Zelda came out of the bathroom in a slight hurry. "If I don't see you again, good luck tomorrow! You'll be awesome!" She gave Link one of those awkward hugs where one person is standing and the other is sitting; where you're not quite sure if you should stand up and prolong the hug unnecessarily or just stay down and look stupid.  
She gave a smile and headed out the door.  
Link sat on the couch for a while by himself, finishing his plate and picking up the paper to look for any interesting headlines. Something about a Goron using steroids in a recent Goron Race caught his eye, but before he could get to the meat of the story, Jerry's door opened down the hall and the familiar rattle of his bones pre-empted his appearance.  
Jerry sat down in the chair opposite the couch and took another sip of his seemingly never-ending mocha frappachino. Link nodded to him and continued reading the story about the juicing Goron.  
"Ya know," Jerry started, "it might be good for you to see a few new faces. And you never know if you might find a special lady friend over at this new place." Jerry chuckled slightly and sipped some more creamy goodness from his mug. "And if you find out there's a woman working above you, well, maybe you could work out some... 'special agreements' to help you move up in the company faster."  
A long pause fell between the two.  
"Why are you staring at me?" Link asked.  
"I'm not staring at you."  
"You're staring at me."  
"No, I'm winking at you." It's rather hard to tell if someone's winking when they have no eyelids, or even eyes for that matter, as was Jerry's predicament.  
"You know nobody can tell when you wink, Jerry."  
Jerry looked at Link for a second trying to think of something to say.  
"Ah, to Hell with it." Jerry rustled in his seat a little bit to alleviate his feeling stupid and tried to find something to take his mind off of it, his vacant ocular cavities darting around the room. "Well, I think I'm gonna head in early. Get some reading done on Walden. Later." Jerry and his mug walked out the front door and Link could hear the familiar sound of his car starting in the parking lot and driving off. Link finished the topic in the paper, cleaned up his dishes, and went to bed.

The following morning Link woke up, stretched out on his bed and traipsed into the shower. Traipsing was his preferred method of transportation these days. He made himself a breakfast of eggs and toast and made a mental reminder to stop at the market and pick up more eggs. Just as he was sitting down to eat Jerry walked in the door, home from the night shift. They exchanged formalities and Jerry went to his room to do who knows what. This morning exchange was not uncommon most days, given Jerry's hours. Zelda was likely still sleeping in her room or still out sleeping in someone else's room. After the first year or so living together, Link had stopped bothering to check where she was.  
Link ate his food, unchained Epona from the railing and headed off to his new job. He wasn't told what to wear, so he donned his usual green tunic and leather accessories.  
Link arrived with time to spare, locked up Epona, and approached the receptionist, who may or may not have been sniffing the highlighters.  
"Hi, I'm the new junior accountant," Link said. The woman at the desk seemed almost startled by him, but upon recognizing his face instantly smiled.  
"Oh, hello again!" She began ruffling through some papers on her desk looking for something. "Blink, was it?"  
"Link."  
"Here you are, Wink," she said, handing him a few papers and a name badge. Link checked the badge to make sure it was correct, which it thankfully was. He didn't want to be introduced as Wink to everyone on the first day. "Mr. Foreman is expecting you just down the hall. He'll glad to show you your desk and give you a general orientation of how things work around here." She shined a glorious botox-induced smile at Link and he walked down the hallway, finding Mr. Foreman's office fairly quickly. He knocked on the already-open door to get his attention, but quickly noticed that no one was at the desk.  
Not wanting to be too presumptuous, but still hearing a sound of occupancy, Link leaned in a little further and scanned the room for George Foreman. Right behind the door was Mr. Foreman tending to a pot of coffee. He was quietly singing to himself before he turned around and saw Link right in front of him.  
"RRREAAAAAAARRRRRHHHH!" Link froze and Mr. Foreman spilled some coffee from his mug in his startle. "Oh, sorry there, mate! Didn't hear ya come in!" Link's appendages soon came back under his control as George was fixing his mess.  
"My apologies again," George said. "I've got that nasty habit of screaming, as you've surely noticed. Anyway, let's have a tour shall we?" It wasn't until just now that Link realized Mr. Foreman was a ReDead that wore a button-up shirt but no pants.  
Mr. Foreman and Link walked around the offices visiting many places that Link knew he'd forget two minutes later. They visited the supply closet, the break room, the conference room, and several other small places until they came upon the sea of cubicles that Link feared would be his place of business. He feared it as a Moblin fears a spelling bee. Link saw a few familiar faces among the crowd, but none that he was too familiar with. Mr. Foreman was very kind the whole time, though, which certainly helped.  
Eventually Link settled down into his cubicle and Mr. Foreman showed him his general tasks before calling over a passerby. "Ah, now this here is Brad. He's been here for a few months now and he could easily help you out with anything you may need. Any questions 'fore I head out, lad?"  
"No, I think I'm good for now, sir," Link replied. His gaze turned to Brad, who had until now been just barely visible above the cubicle wall. As he walked through the wall's opening Link noticed that Brad looked nearly identical to himself, except for the fact that he was entirely an unusual shade of bluish-black and had red eyes. Link peed himself a little at the sight of this monstrosity of a human being.  
"Hey new guy, I'm Brad, I've been working here since March and I think I've pretty much got this place figured out, want something to drink? Need anything for your desk?" Brad tried to spin a pen on his fingers and dropped it on the floor, quickly picking it up hoping Link would think nothing of it. "I gotchya, man, I gotchya if you need anything." He spoke as if a terrible fate would fall upon him if he didn't say what he had to say in one giant, speedy sentence.  
"Um, no, I think I'm good for now. Thanks, Brad."  
"All right, guy, whatever you say." Brad eyed Link's name badge. "Link? Nice." Link eyed the massive headset on Brad's head.  
"Headset? … Nice."  
"Well," Brad continued, "I'll be getting back to my work. If you need anything just find me, guy. I'm in the cubicle at the end of this row. Laters!" Link was slightly off-set by Brad's demeanor, but was still glad to know that he could go to someone if he was confused.  
Before Link could even begin setting up his desk a voice called him from the opposite side of his computer. "Brad's a bit of a spazz if you haven't already noticed." Link whipped around in his swivel chair to see a purple-haired girl's face resting on her arms on his cubicle wall. "Hi, I'm Shannon, but you can call me Shan," she said as she extended an arm out for a handshake over the wall coupled with a beautiful, almost seductive smile and angle of her eyes. It was one of those awkward handshakes where one person is standing and the other is sitting; where you're not quite sure if you should stand up and prolong the handshake unnecessarily or just stay down and look stupid.  
"Hi Shan. Link. You- you look really familiar. Have we met before?"  
"Possibly. Ever go Bombchu Bowling?"  
"Ah! That's it! You work the Bombchu Bowling Alley! Second job here?"  
"Nah, the alley closed up several years ago after the town became infested with ReDeads. Turns out they were just looking for jobs but no one bothered to ask."  
"That shit's rigged, son!" Link yelled out, nearly breaking the armrests off of his chair.  
"Psh, tell me about it," Shan replied, completely unphased by Link's mercurial attitude. "Some of the Bombchus were built to go off at weird angles after they were deployed. Plus we had PETA breathing down our necks for, you know, putting live Cuccos on the courses. Apparently treating Cuccos like a Nazi bunker is wrong, I dunno. It was kind of a blessing in disguise to have the place close since now I work here."  
"How'd you find the place?" Link inquired.  
"Mr. Foreman was one of the ReDeads looking for a job, so he and I met and started job hunting until we came upon this place. Don't those leather gloves get in the way?" she added, noticing Link's unusual apparel.  
"Meh, it's a living." Link was starting to finally relax thanks to Shan.  
"Cool. Well, if you need anything I'll be right over this wall." Shan disappeared over the wall and went back to her work.

The rest of the day went by fairly normally for Link. Much of it was spent watching training videos on his computer and taking trips to the water cooler. Little real work was actually done. Every now and again Link would hear familiar voices but didn't feel like checking to match a face. A few people came into his cubicle throughout the day to say hello and give their greetings to the new guy. Among them were Ingo the former ranch-hand and one of the carpenters he had freed from the Gerudo Fortress prison years ago, Sabooro. Brad could be often heard wandering from cubicle to cubicle trying to make small talk with other employees. Most of these conversations were short-lived.  
George Foreman came around a few times to make sure Link was doing well. Link knew it would be a while until he got used to working for a half-naked, British ReDead, but he began to really like his new job. The pay was better than his previous jobs and there was no risk of getting Epona's chain snagged while he was on the clock, a problem that plagued his last job like the way Leevers plague an otherwise perfect day on the beach.  
As the day neared its end, Link finished up the last of his training videos that he could cram and started for the exit. As he walked out he saw several cubicles with little personal knick-knacks, pictures, and posters of cats that somehow ended up on a clothes wire hanging on by one paw. If PETA were hounding the Bombchu alley, they certainly should be going for the sick bastards that made these posters, Link thought to himself. Seeing all the cubicles, however, made him think of what he might like to bring in to make his work quarters a little more liveable.  
Link said goodbye to Shan, Mr. Foreman, and the receptionist, who may or may not have been sniffing the Sharpies, got on Epona, and headed home.


	3. Chapter 3: I wonder what's for dinner

Link in the Big City Chapter 3: I wonder what's for dinner

Link arrived on time for work for the second consecutive day in a row, setting a new personal record. It was strange, but working at Hyrule, Inc., was making Link feel more and more like a man every day, or at least since yesterday. He steadied Epona, patting her smooth handlebars and giving her handbrakes a loving squeeze for good measure, and then chained her carefully to the bike rack before heading inside. Link's sandstorm of a consciousness was befogged thanks to Zelda, who had never returned the night before; no doubt she was off gallivanting throughout the countryside, topless and perhaps drunk with milk with some dashing prince from Termina or maybe a foreign land where all the men shine as though made of diamonds, have bodies as cold as a man's feet after he's been wading in a public swimming pool for about an hour, and have hair as ridiculous as a clown's after he's been running electric currents through his nipples all afternoon while dunking half of his head in maple syrup.

Link snapped out of his reverie in the world of beautiful men to notice that things were not right in this office today: the lights were all off, nobody was at their work stations or really here at all, and there was no miasma of coffee in the air. He walked to his desk, expecting Brad to burst into conversation about meaningless or uninteresting observations he's made in the last half hour. Instead, he was met with the same amount of darkness and loneliness. _Perhaps now is my chance to get some work done_, he thought. _Perhaps now I can live in peace without Brad constantly talking to me about the mundane—_

"Hey Link! Whaaaaat's happening. Listen, I just thought you'd be interested to know that the boss isn't here today. Weird, huh? I mean it's like he's always here, even on his days off. I wonder what the deal is," Brad's sudden and unexpected break into the sweet, sweet silence was like having Brad Pitt pour lye into your mouth and tell you that the pain is an illusion. Link cringed and turned a bit in his chair to acknowledge Brad's observation, and noted disinterestedly that their outfits matched perfectly. Inwardly, Link hoped that none of his other co-workers would think that he was anything like this maniac, this white collared madman.

"Hey, Brad," Link replied somberly, hoping against hope that his complete and total lack of interest in anything that Brad had to say to him would come across. Instead, Brad leaned against the opening to the cubicle and sniffed his frothy coffee, pausing for just a moment as if to tease poor Link's ears before setting them aflame again with what was undoubtedly going to be the worst talk of Link's young life, even worse than 'The Talk' with the Deku Tree, which was especially awkward as Link could barely understand the sacred plant thing. Anyway Brad launched himself onto the next topic of mindless stupidity like a rocket into the ocean, an ocean of alien pee that burned at the touch. _Get it together_, Link urged himself. _You gotta be strong for everyone back at home._ There was no one depending on his success at Hyrule, Inc., but himself, but this was an extraneous fact for him. _Aw,_ Link sighed inwardly, _what is he even talking about_?

Brad was in fact talking about the way the carpet seemed to oddly match the walls of the cubicles. He had apparently once dared himself to count the number of threads on a single panel of a cubicle, and had been forced to leave at the end of the day before he'd even gotten halfway through counting them all. "It's hard to tell right now though," Brad remarked, looking around the office. "The lights are off. Maybe it's because it's Saturday? I never know."

"What." Link huskily sighed, attempting to defog his brain of the cloudy wall of endless trivia that had been projected by Brad's horrible mouth.

"I don't know. Maybe we should hit the lights? Might help us see the things we're supposed to be doing, I guess," Brad sighed, at last sipping his coffee to give Link a break from the Hadouken spam that was his monologue.

"No, what day did you say it was?" Link growled, unbelieving in the hell to which he had personally subjected himself.

"Saturday, the fourth. Yeah, I'm thinking I might go rock climbing on Tuesday. Boss says I can have the day off if I want since my numbers are so good. Yep, gonna go see what's on the top of Death Mountain, maybe take a couple pictures for my Face Book," Brad rambled, but at the first word Link had begun to shake in anger. He had come in on his purported day off! What an unbelievable turn of events. "Maybe I'll go with the whole 'visionary' look for a couple, might do one where it looks like I'm reaching down into the city from above, you know, like a whole 'I'm god' thing. Might do another where I'm just leaning back and the whole scene is my backdrop? Who knows, I gotta make sure I do it right."

Link picked up his bag and shoved his pen into it. He had already been here for half an hour, but all of it had been devoted to listening to Brad talk about his stupidity, and no actual work had been done. As he stood and began fishing his green helmet out of his bag, Brad looked slightly amused.

"You goin' home, big L?" Brad said with a grin.

"Yeah, it's Saturday; we've got the day off," Link said monotonously. The sooner he was out of this man's presence, the sooner he could sit on the couch with Jerry and make snide comments about the guests on the _Jerry Springer Show_ and Link would be able to occasionally remark about how his roommate and Springer totally had the same first name. _One of these days, it's going to make Jerry laugh_, Link thought.

"What? You can't go," Brad said, sipping his coffee again. Link stopped in his tracks, willing himself not to lose it and to hurt his coworker as hard as he could physically manage. He turned and watched Brad, slowly slurping his beverage like it was a Popsicle freshly removed from the freezer and still sticking to his lips. The horrible suckling sound was grating and impossible to tolerate for much longer, but finally Brad stopped to explain himself. "Yeah, I locked the doors. Automated, you know? Won't open for another, ahhh," he checked his gold watch. "Another eight and a half hours."

"Why would you do that?" Link earnestly wanted to know why any employee anywhere would willingly lock himself in his place of business. "What if there was a fire?"

"It's to increase morale," Brad said, as though this made perfect sense. _Slurp, slurp._

Link shook with maddening rage, widening his eyes and making some indiscernible roar, his arms tense with self-restraint. "OH MY GOD."

"You okay there, Big L?" Brad raised an eyebrow and lifted his coffee cup in concern. Link already hated the name 'Big L.'

"'OKAY?' YOU LOCKED US IN ON OUR DAY OFF," Link was screaming at the top of his lungs. "WHY WOULD I BE OKAY?"

Brad shrugged and looked around. "I wonder where everyone else is today."

"THEY'RE AT HOME, YOU JACK- UGGGH," Link could not conjure an offensive enough title for the feelings that he had for this evil, evil man. Watching the way he ignorantly surveyed the rest of the still darkened office building, perhaps listening for some clue, some indication that lent a discovered co-worker in his or her cubicle, Link could not believe that such a terrible, awful person could possibly, possibly exist.

"Yeah, I guess they're just coming in late today. Well I guess it doesn't really matter though, since the doors are locked. Yeah, good and tight," Brad said, more to himself than to Link. He nodded at nothing and sipped some more coffee. It was hard to believe that his single cup would have lasted as long as it had.

"YOU…" Link began, but wildly began conjuring a plan. If there was no way to get out of here, away from work and away from Brad, then he would surely die. Worse than die: staying here with Brad was like being in hell, and Brad himself was the devil. He looked around for a blunt instrument to use on the glass doors in the front. Finding a fire extinguisher, he roughly yanked it off the wall and quickly carried it over his head like some kind of trophy to the front doors. Brad followed, amused.

"You gonna clean the windows, Big L?" Brad said, slurping some more.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT," Link roared as he pitched the extinguisher through the door, effectively shattering a man-sized hole in it. He jumped through, casting one last glance at Brad, who seemed hardly concerned. He ran to Epona, who was faithfully still chained to the bike rack. "I'M GOING HOME." Fumbling with the lock key, he finally managed to get Epona loose from the rack, and he rode her home to the apartment, still fuming in rage.

Brad slurped his coffee, watching Link move faster uphill on his bike than he had ever seen someone in a car manage. After a moment, he pulled out a cell phone and pressed Send, redialing to another contact. "Mr. Ganondorf," he said, holding his cup of coffee in front of his lips. "I've found him."

"Excellent," said Ganondorf over the phone. "Keep an eye on him. When he finds the Kokiri Emerald, that's when we'll make our move." The call ended.

Brad closed his phone and slurped his coffee.


End file.
